Shop

Someone did it: Holden Commodore conversion for your Pontiac G8

General Motors has been the perpetrator of several fortunate and unfortunate badge engineering jobs over the years, and the G8 -- based off the Holden Commodore -- is the most recent example. The Aussie sedan was partially developed with American sales in mind and because of that, it doesn't take much to give your spiffy new G8 a nose job inspired by the Land Down Under. Australian firm JHP Vehicle Enhancements will sell you an entire body kit to change your G8 into a Holden for a mere, um, $4,000 if you choose to go all out in an attempt to replicate the HSV model. That's a sizable chunk of change, but beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Since we're less concerned with appearances, we'd just put the extra scratch towards upgrading to the GXP.

Reported comments and users are reviewed by Autoblog staff 24 hours a day, seven days a week to determine whether they violate Community Guideline. Accounts are penalized for Community Guidelines violations and serious or repeated violations can lead to account termination.

Anonymous

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

I'm driving a Pontiac. And I'm intending buying a G8 GXP, but I must say that this one looks so much better than the G8. I keep saying that it was one of the biggest mistakes GM marketers have done - why not to bring the car as Holden Commodore? Why not for God sake? It would cost much much less to promote it as Holden rather then trying to sell it as a Pontiac. I have G8 on my work computer as the desktop wallpaper and, invariably, after the initial interest, oh what car is this?, as soon as I say this is Pontiac, the interest momentarily disappears. Something is terribly wrong with contemporary Americansâ psychology - Americans seems to have so low self-esteem that itâs impossible for majority of them to believe that their fellow citizens are able to engineer and produce anything decent. My only hope is that some of GM marketing people read this and give it a thought, otherwise, I may not have a chance on buying the car when Iâm on the market in a couple of years.

Anonymous

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

GM should have saved themselves some $$ initially, retained the Holden bodywork, and marketed the car in the US as the (real) Impala. The Pontiac name doesn't carry much value anyway, and despite the unfortunate Bangle evolution, BMW still does a better job with the split grille look.

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

Perhaps, but adoption of Holden's fascia would arguably be a step in the right direction, stylistically speaking. Or if they wanted to stick with the tired horizontal bar theme they have going now, they could have easily incorporated that into the Holden without completely revising the front end.

Anonymous

6 Years Ago

Just about all car companies have a corporate nose these days. So they wouldn't be "saving" any money by leaving the Holden looking like a Holden and bringing it over as a Pontiac of Chevrolet because then they'd have to change the grilles of all other Pontiacs and Chevrolets which would cost way more money. Non car people are ignorant and need to be able to easily determine where to find a new car and without a easily recognizable grille and emblem, they are lost.